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Spiegel has designated Gauck's nomination as "Merkel's biggest defeat"; the FDP supporting SPD/Greens is hailed as "a giant break of trust" by CDU representatives. This includes some major internal CDU people like Bernhard Vogel or Wolfgang Bosbach.

Both Die Linke and the (small remaining) left wing of the SPD under General Secretary Andrea Nahles criticize the nomination of Gauck and the process in which the nomination was handled, excluding Die Linke from cross-partisan talks.

The way this is going i doubt Gauck will garner even just say 900 votes from the 1,099 votes the five parties supporting him hold. High enough to win, low enough to be a Blamage.

Die Linke is going for symbolism with their candidate choice. Gauck used to head the government agency looking into GDR Stasi files, exposing former Stasi agents.

The - preliminary - choice of the Linke as presidential candidate to oppose Gauck is Beate Klarsfeld. Klarsfeld is a prominent Nazi hunter, exposing and preparing the conviction of among others Lyon Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and also - recently - had a large part in Alois Brunner, Eichmann's deputy who's living in Syria, being convicted in absentia in France.
She's also renowned for having slapped former chancellor Kiesinger out in public for his nazi past, as well as accusing other German politicians for the same in the 60s and 70s.

Klarsfeld is a Commander of the Ordre National du Merite and a Knight of the Honour Legion for her services to the French Nation. She's been nominated for the Federal Service Cross a few times but the nomination has continually been shot down by the Foreign Office for political reasons (under both FDP and Green foreign ministers).

Political cabarettist Georg Schramm, a possible candidate of the Pirates, turned down the possible nomination today btw.

Groenewald is a manager of a movie production fonds that received a 4 million Euro debt guarantee for one of its subsidiary companies from the state of Lower Saxony in 2006. Wulff also lobbied for movie production funds of the type Groenewald ran, which back in 2005 were under fire for being nothing but tax writeoff fonds for investors.

Groenewold's offices and home were searched yesterday. A planned search of Wulff's home on thursday was cancelled due to the presence of too many journalists. All Lower Saxon state ministries currently have staff going through their files searching for anything connecting Groenewold with Wulff and Glaeseker. The files handed over to the Hannover district attorney so far only comprise 450 pages and are considered incomplete in this regard.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state. All state authority is derived from the people. It shall be exercised by the people through elections and other votes and through specific legislative, executive and judicial bodies. All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, if no other remedy is available.

Of course not. Secrecy is considered one of the core tenets of a real democratic system, and applied in almost every election in Germany (not in votes in parliamentary bodies, those aren't elections). Violating it is punishable by a couple years jail here.

The Federal Assembly will convene on Feb 12th 2017 to elect a new president.

It is highly likely that there will be four candidates again, one each supported by CDU, SPD, Left and likely AfD. Unless other parties come to a coalition - and that would require the Left and Greens supporting the SPD candidate along with the Pirates - the CDU candidate would likely be voted in in the third round with only a relative majority. The only possible coalitions to find an absolute majority are "left of Center" (Red-Red-Green-Pirate), "grand" (Black-Red) or Black-Green; since federal parliament elections are only seven months later the CDU can't afford to field a joint candidate with either the SPD or Greens though. There'll be two state elections later this year that will modify the composition of the assembly, but not to an extent that majorities will shift.

The CDU leadership currently seems to be eyeing Norbert Lammert, current federal parliament president, as a possible candidate, while the right wing of the CDU is pushing for Wolfgang Schäuble, current minister of finances. From the SPD side there have been rumours that Frank-Walter Steinmeier, current foreign minister, "could be a good candidate". It is highly unlikely anything definitive appears on this before the two state elections in September, and the full field not before the turn of the year.

Given current projections, the state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will turn out either a Grand or Red-Red-Green coalition, while Berlin state might be able to wing a Red-Green coalition depending on SPD performance. Both currently are ruled by Grand Coalitions, and could lose the federal government 7 of its 20 assured votes in the federal senate (where the federal Grand Coalition has nowhere near a majority - Green approval has a 65% majority right now). As such the state elections, while they won't change much for the Federal Assembly, could also be seen as an early warning on coalitions forming up.

The Federal Assembly will convene on Feb 12th 2017 to elect a new president.

It is highly likely that there will be four candidates again, one each supported by CDU, SPD, Left and likely AfD. Unless other parties come to a coalition - and that would require the Left and Greens supporting the SPD candidate along with the Pirates - the CDU candidate would likely be voted in in the third round with only a relative majority. The only possible coalitions to find an absolute majority are "left of Center" (Red-Red-Green-Pirate), "grand" (Black-Red) or Black-Green; since federal parliament elections are only seven months later the CDU can't afford to field a joint candidate with either the SPD or Greens though. There'll be two state elections later this year that will modify the composition of the assembly, but not to an extent that majorities will shift.

The CDU leadership currently seems to be eyeing Norbert Lammert, current federal parliament president, as a possible candidate, while the right wing of the CDU is pushing for Wolfgang Schäuble, current minister of finances. From the SPD side there have been rumours that Frank-Walter Steinmeier, current foreign minister, "could be a good candidate". It is highly unlikely anything definitive appears on this before the two state elections in September, and the full field not before the turn of the year.

Given current projections, the state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will turn out either a Grand or Red-Red-Green coalition, while Berlin state might be able to wing a Red-Green coalition depending on SPD performance. Both currently are ruled by Grand Coalitions, and could lose the federal government 7 of its 20 assured votes in the federal senate (where the federal Grand Coalition has nowhere near a majority - Green approval has a 65% majority right now). As such the state elections, while they won't change much for the Federal Assembly, could also be seen as an early warning on coalitions forming up.

Damn, he just did this to ruin my prediction for two terms.

No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

Election for Gauck's successor will take place on February 12th as written above.

It's already decided though: the government will officially name Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current foreign minister, as their joint candidate tomorrow - they agreed on him yesterday. The current government coalition will hold between 928 and 931 out of 1260 seats in the Federal Assembly electing the president, hence guaranteeing that Steinmeier wins.

Steinmeier is a compromise candidate, mostly because all big-name CDU potentials refused the candidacy - in particular Norbert Lammert refused a candidacy for the CDU about four weeks ago. Steinmeier, in addition to the 386-388 SPD seats, needs at least 242-244 (out of 542-543) CDU electors to vote for him in the first or second run.

There will be at least three, possibly up to five other candidates, although all without chances:

within the Greens (145-146 seats) there are still attempts to get the Baden-Württemberg state ministerpresident Winfried Kretschmann to run; there are now also talks about possibly supporting Steinmeier

the Left (94 seats) already having announced they will also field a candidate, since Steinmeier as an "architect of Agenda 2010" *) is unvotable to them

FDP (33 seats) is pretty silent, and to my knowledge last talked about their own candidate in June

Albrecht Glaser will run for AfD (27 seats)

Alexander Hold will run for the Free Voters Union (10 seats)

like the Left, the Pirates (10 seats) have already also announced they won't vote for Steinmeier, so they might either run one of their own or possibly get with the Left candidate.

ABW (8 seats) as a splitoff of AfD will by then either rejoin AfD or vote for their candidate anyway.

*) Agenda 2010 was Gerhard Schröder's reform of the German welfare system.

The Federal Assembly, the body that will elect Gauck's successor, is similar in function to the US Electoral College, although it constitutes itself differently. It will consist of the Bundestag members and an equal number of state representatives which will be divided between states based on population numbers (German nationals only) and themselves elected by the state parliaments. The election will be presided over by Norbert Lammert as the President of the Bundestag federal lower house, while the President of the Bundesrat upper house would be interim president if Gauck stepped down (or would be otherwise incapacitated) before the election.

The exact composition of the Federal Assembly still depends on state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. The current composition (before those elections) would have in seats:

(43.2%) 544-545 for CDU

(30.9%) 388-390 for SPD

(11.7%) 147-148 for Greens

(7.5%) 94 for the Left

(2.8%) 35 for FDP

(1.6%) 20 for AfD

(1.0%) 12 for the Pirates

(0.8%) 10 for the Free Voters Union

(0.6%) 8 for ABW

(0.1%) 1 for NPD

(0.1%) 1 for SSW

Different numbers further above are taking likely outcomes for the elections into account, mostly a strong AfD showing.